Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The much ballyhooed “race war” between Blacks and Latinos is turning out to be yet another case of media hype.

Many in the national media raised the alarm of a brewing “race war” between Blacks and Hispanics following a series of gang-related killings earlier this year in the Los Angeles area. Fueling the idea of discord between the nation’s two largest minority groups was the two-to-one preference among Hispanic voters for Hillary Clinton over Barrack Obama at the time. Even as the pundits issued their grave warnings (which no doubt helped sell newspapers and raise ratings), they seemed oblivious to truths many Latinos and Blacks understood.

First of all, you can’t have a “race war” when the opposing sides can be members of the same race. Fact is, throughout Latin America there are roughly 100 million Afro-Latinos. That compares to about 40 million African-Americans in the United States, by the way. In other words, the overwhelming majority of Black people in this hemisphere speak Spanish or Portuguese rather than English. And let’s not forget that Latinos can also be Caucasian, further complicating the media’s overly simplistic “black-brown” stereotypes. These facts, however, did not stop many news editors from fostering the illusion of a “racial conflict.”

Perhaps most telling, the depth of this alleged conflict was believed to be most severe by the people farthest removed from it: Non-Hispanic Whites. That’s right. A recent Gallup poll showed that roughly 50% of Anglos across the U.S. believed relations between Blacks and Hispanics are “bad.” Meanwhile, 60% of Blacks reported their relations with Hispanics as being “good.” Among Hispanics, 67% felt relations with Blacks were “good.” Clearly, the media’s doom and gloom scenarios have created a falsely negative perception among Non-Hispanic Whites, most of who unquestioningly accept the “black-brown” media stereotypes foisted upon them.

Further evidence dispelling the hyped-up Black-Hispanic conflict comes from a recent political poll. With Hillary Clinton out of the race for the Democratic nomination, Hispanic voters have switched their allegiance from Clinton to Obama. Hispanics now favor Obama over McCain by the same two-to-one margin they once gave Clinton. Faced with a choice between a Democrat and a Republican, the alleged Hispanic bias against Blacks simply evaporated.

Even as we watch the false perception of a Black-Hispanic conflict crumble, it’s important to remember the many other myths the media still perpetuates about Latinos. A prime example is the absurd and dangerous assumption that all Hispanics across the nation vote as a single bloc. But that’s a discussion for another day. The question to ask ourselves today is this: Who really stands to gain from a Black-Hispanic conflict?

My novels in brief

America Libre,House Dividedand Pancho Land imagine a nightmarish, not-too-distant future when tensions between Hispanic separatists and Anglo supremacists ignite an ethnic conflict that leads to an armed insurrection seeking to redraw the borders of the United States. A cautionary tale, The Class H Trilogy is a wake-up call to the dangers of bigotry and extremism in a growing ethnic gulf.

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Could it happen here?

When I began writing America Libre in 2004, some thought the book’s premise was unrealistic. An uprising by Hispanics? The idea seemed far-fetched, they said. Today, the skeptics are no longer so certain. I posed the nightmare scenario of America Libre as a wake up call to the dangers of extremism - on all sides of this explosive issue. Hispanic immigration is a hotly debated topic today. Yet it is only the tip of the iceberg. Over the next decade, three other factors will prove equally significant. READ MORE